It’s surprising that concerts featuring a string quartet and a singer are not more common. The combination has considerable appeal, as evident again in Wednesday’s performance by the Miró Quartet and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke at the Kennedy Center. Ginastera, Othmar Schoeck and Schoenberg have written for such an ensemble, but for this program Cooke sang works by Schubert, Hugo Wolf and Copland in arrangements for string quartet by the Miró Quartet’s violist, John Largess.

A visit to Notre-Dame Cathedral to hear Olivier Latry play the organ at Mass should be a part of everyone’s trip to Paris. The celebrated French organist returned to Washington this week to perform as part of the Georgetown Concert Series at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Tuesday evening. The instrument and space are dwarfed in comparison to the last place I heard him play here, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in 2009, but Latry delivered an excellent program centered on his strengths, late Romantic French music and improvisation.

28.4.15

Washington National Cathedral plays host to visiting English choirs from time to time, this year in a three-part festival that began last fall, with a concert by the Westminster Abbey Choir. This spring brought the Choir of King's College, Cambridge (last month, not reviewed), and the Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, heard on Sunday evening. While this series of events has celebrated the beautiful musical tradition of the church choir of men and boys, a wistful feeling permeated the evening, as institutions that support such choirs, like Washington National Cathedral, struggle to remain financially solvent in the face of declining membership.

What remains unshakable is the beauty of the Victorian and Edwardian repertory that is the bread and butter of this choir. Settings of the grand Anglican translations of old liturgical texts like Vaughan Williams's Te Deum in G, the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis of Stanford's Evening Service in G, and John Ireland's Greater Love were robust, soaring, space-filling in the best way, the score or so of boys' voices on the top part balanced against the other three parts sung by a dozen men. As the Westminster Abbey Choir had done, Parry's epic, soupy-sentimental anthem I Was Glad represented the best of English royal ceremonial, evoked for the Anglophile royal fantasists in the crowd. Unlike the Westminster choir, the contemporary pieces on this program were not of the same quality: Will Todd's banal anthem The Call of Wisdom, the worst kind of Rutteresque Hallmarkiana, complete with the absurd use of the Zimbelstern stop; and Nico Muhly's repetitive but more effective Grief Is the Price We Pay for Love. Organist Simon Johnson had solid turns on two solo pieces, but William Walton's Orb and Scepter march cannot help but sound corny now, as understated and subtle as a circus calliope.

The first half opened with much older music, Latin motets by Tallis and Byrd interspersed among the movements of Byrd's Mass for Four Voices. This music was written for the Catholic liturgy, often sung by small groups for Catholics in hiding from Anglican persecution, an association that was acknowledged in carefully couched terms by Andrew Carwood, the choir's director of music. In fact, as hinted at in the choir's program notes, Byrd embeds a reference to this fact in the Credo section of this Mass: at the words "Et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam," Byrd has the voices repeat the word "Catholicam" insistently, the only place where a single word is repeated in this way, as if to underscore belief in one holy, catholic -- Catholic! -- and apostolic church. This more austere music, unaccompanied, did not sit as comfortably for the choir, which experienced some minor rhythmic misalignments here and there, and Byrd's high writing (the tenors soar up to B-flat with the rising line at "ascendit in caelum") brought out some stridency in the adult voices. On the other hand, the Kyrie and Sanctus movements were gorgeous in their subtle soft textures, and the Gregorian hymn Ecce tempus idoneum, sung in alternation with Tallis's organ setting of the tune, was a most memorable accompaniment to the entrance of the choir from the narthex.

27.4.15

In 1908 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney opened the Whitney Studio Gallery on West 8th Street, where she also had her own studio, to showcase the work of her artist friends and her steadily growing collection. By the 20s the Whitney Studio Club, a salon where artists such as John Sloan, William Glackens, and George Luks among others met to discuss, exhibit their work, and drink, was incorporated into the mix.

In 1931 Whitney approached the Metropolitan Museum of Art with an offer to donate her collection of some 700 pieces of modern artworks, and they declined her offer. She then decided to create her own museum, because she could. Needing more space, in 1954 the museum moved uptown to 54th Street and then moved once again in 1966 to a new Marcel Breuer-designed building on Madison Avenue.

On May 1st the Whitney Museum of American Art makes a triumphal return to its roots in the West Village. Unlike its brownstone beginnings, this time it will have 50,000 square feet of indoor exhibition space and 30,000 square feet of exterior space, with amazing views of the Hudson River and Manhattan skyline. Not only will the new Whitney have plenty of room to show off its collection, which now exceeds some 21,000 pieces, but this shiny new space could prompt a reconsideration of the matter of just what American art is. It's a wide-open question and there is a lot of competition from other museums attempting to take on what the Whitney started, by showing American artists, especially living, working artists. The Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum, the Guggenheim, and the stately Met have made strong moves in collecting and exhibiting contemporary art, courting benefactors, and waging the all-important battle for the young audience, with their short attention spans and interactive brains. Even its new neighbors, the big-money Chelsea galleries, have been putting on some impressive museum-quality shows of late.

It's clear as the Whitney opens its new Renzo Piano-designed home in the Meatpacking District, the heart of blue-chip art land, that it's ready to take on the challenge. With its big industrial gallery spaces, soft wood flooring, and expansive exterior spaces, great things can happen here. But will it be fresh, or will it follow a depressing trend of museums showing the same artists who seem to pop up in every exhibit, art fair, and auction house?

The Whitney's inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See, is a selection of over 600 works by some 400 artists, spanning the period from about 1900 to the present, all from the museum’s permanent collection, with some well-known works, but also many never shown and several newly acquired. Now for the first time curators will have plenty of room to experiment, juxtaposing the old with the new, an ongoing inter-generational discourse, that in this first exhibit shows just how relevant the old guard of the collection is.

Marsden Hartley looks as bold and beautiful as ever, and Edward Hopper has the room and light-filled space he thrives in. Jackson Pollock’s Number 27 is in the company of Willem de Kooning’s Woman and Bicycle, and across the way the irascible spray paint-wielding Hedda Sterne holds her own quite well and is looking very contemporary, thank you. It's clear as history unfolds floor by floor that the myths, versus the realities, of America are not easy stories. Lynchings, war, depression, strikes, protests, and social changes are on display in rawness and beauty.

Can the Whitney re-establish itself and keep the discussion going? I think yes. But it has to be about inclusion. Art is being made all over the country, by an incredibly diverse range of artists. Can we quibble about the building's exterior design? Sure. Although I like it, as a whole the industrial structure sits well in the district, a once gritty and rough neighborhood. The question I asked was will it survive the Hudson River, should it decide to spew forth into Chelsea again? And it will, and yes, they have thought about it.

So when you visit after the new Whitney opens on May 1st, take the elevator to the 8th floor, be swooned by the two Hartley paintings as the doors open, revel in a fabulous collection that now has room to show off. Be sure to take the exterior steps as you go floor to floor, contemplate the David Smith sculpture sitting proudly on the elevated steel and concrete runways, or take a seat in one of Mary Heilmann's colorful chairs. Look around: the mighty river, the city, it's an American story continuing to unfold, inside and out.

26.4.15

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

Nelson Freire joins the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, under Charles Dutoit, for music by Debussy, Chopin, Stravinsky, and Ravel, recorded in Geneva. [France Musique]

Watch the production of Cherubini's Médée from the Grand Théâtre de Genève, directed by Christof Loy. [ARTE]

Do not miss a performance of Pascal Dusapin's new opera Penthesilea, recorded at the Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie, starring Natascha Petrinsky (Penthesilea), Marisol Montalvo (Prothoe), and others. [De Munt (video) | RTBF (audio)]

Listen to a rare performance of Gounod's opera Cinq-Mars, recorded in Munich last January, with a cast including Véronique Gens, Tassis Christoyannis, Andrew Foster-Williams, and others. [ORF]

Mikko Franck leads the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in an all-Sibelius concert for the composer's 150th birthday. [France Musique]

Mariss Jansons leads the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's Petrushka and the Brahms violin concerto, with Frank Peter Zimmermann as soloist. [ORF | Part 2]

Cellist Truls Mørk joins the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich for Shostakovich's first cello concerto, with Andrés Orozco-Estrada also conducting music by Nielsen, Martinu, and Enescu, recorded earlier this month in Vienna. [ORF]

Soprano Elisabeth Scholl and countertenor Andreas Scholl join viola da gambist Hartwig Groth, lutenist Sören Leupold, and organist Wiebke Weidanz for a performance of Baroque duets by Handel, Purcell, and others, recorded last January at the German National Museum in Nuremberg. [ORF]

Daniele Gatti conducts all four of Schumann's symphonies with the Orchestre National de France. [France Musique]

Le Concert d'Astrée, conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm and with soprano Lydia Teuscher, performs Handel's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, in a concert recorded in 2013 at the Wiener Konzerthaus. [France Musique]

From a concert at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris recorded in March, the Ensemble 2e2m performs new music by Francesco Filidei, Zeynep Gedizlioğlu, Clara Iannotta, and David Coll. [France Musique]

From the Royal Festival Hall, the Philharmonia Orchestra plays a prelude by Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov's first piano concerto with Daniil Trifonov as soloist, and Dvorak's 8th Symphony, under Yuri Temirkanov. [BBC3]

Listen to a recital by pianist Daniil Trifonov, with music by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Schumann, recorded last August at the Manoir Chopin in Duszniki Zdroj. [RTBF]

From a concert recorded last year at the Festival Musiq'3 in Flagey, Vox Luminis performs the Requiem Impérial dans Z by Johann Joseph Fux. [RTBF]

25.4.15

In France it has been customary to sweep the Vichy period under the rug, except when a major cultural figure's connections to that part of the past can no longer be ignored. Last month there was such a connection alleged with composer Henri Dutilleux, which was ultimately shown to have been exaggerated. Another case in the news this week is modernist architect Le Corbusier. Marion Cocquet spoke to Antoine Picon, president of La Fondation Le Corbusier about it ("Qui a peur de Le Corbusier ?", April 25) for Le Point (my translation):

Just when the Centre Pompidou is devoting a major retrospective to him, the architect is taking some hits: three books have appeared that underscore his fascist sympathies. We knew about his belief in regenerated man, healthy in body and of use to a mechanized society. Xavier de Jarcy, Marc Perelman, and François Chaslin go farther, recalling his friendship with the doctor Pierre Winter or the engineer François de Pierrefeu, eugenicists and members of fascist splinter groups in the 1930s, drawing attention to antisemitic parts of his correspondence, underscoring his conception of a hygienic war and his stay in Vichy between 1941 and 1942.

In that more fascist era, where must we place Le Corbusier?

It is clear, first of all, that he was attracted to those ideas of authoritarian planning. This is not new, and the Le Corbusier Foundation, where his correspondence has been available for more than twenty years, has never tried to hide it. Furthermore, there is evidence that Le Corbusier was flattered by the attention given to him by the fascists and thought some of their ideas were interesting. For a time, he admired Mussolini, and he went to Italy hoping for commissions. But he also repeated many times that he was not a fascist, and he was never tempted by Nazism. One is always reminded of the example of the Italian Giuseppe Terragni who designed the Casa del Fascio in Como, but we forget that the Germans wanted to raze the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, created by Mies van der Rohe! Le Corbusier represented a style of architecture that most fascists found Arabized, fraudulent, foreign...

Picon, who teaches at Harvard, adds that "if there is a reproach to be made against him, it is that he had no political sense." His belief in the superiority of his architectural ideas led him to such ill-considered alliances. At best it may be described as naive.

24.4.15

One of the highlights of any Ionarts season is a concert by Evgeny Kissin. The latest opportunity to hear the Russian virtuoso came on Wednesday night, in an uncompromising program presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Music Center at Strathmore. An inner core of deeply felt emotional masterpieces -- Prokofiev's fourth sonata and sets of Chopin nocturnes and mazurkas -- bolstered by showier Beethoven and Liszt on the ends. Those more profound pieces at the heart of the program were the high point, while Kissin left no doubt as to his near-unassailable technique in the outer ones.

Kissin remains at the top of my list among living interpreters of the music of Chopin, an impression maintained by this performance. In his hands, these pieces had an extemporaneous feel to them, beginning with the gesture of beginning the first nocturne on the program (B-flat minor, op. 9/1) with the right hand almost from nothing, hesitant even to start the piece. Kissin has a fluidity of rubato that sounds like improvisation, not rushed or dragged out sentimentally, but hesitating and impetuous in equal measure, with even the embellishments to the melody sounding not practiced but added on the fly. In all the nocturnes, there were degrees of exquisite softness and exceptional freedom in the runs of the right hand. Six mazurkas, even more intimate pieces, were exquisitely pondered, to the point of almost ignoring the audience: the blue notes savored in op. 6/1, the hurdy-gurdy sections of op. 6/2 and op. 7/3 dark and creaking, the middle section of op. 7/2 more martial.

After the masterful rendition of Prokofiev's eighth sonata heard at his 2009 recital, as well as his recording of the composer's concertos, one expected great things of the fourth sonata (C minor, op. 29). Prokofiev built this sonata from themes of earlier pieces in his old notebooks, and the piece feels heavily layered, strands on top of strands that Kissin teased apart with careful patience, the first two movements steeped in melancholy but also wistful tenderness. The finale provided all of the fireworks Kissin needed to end the first half, at times cantankerous, heavy-handed, even clownish, all around extraordinary.

The only minor disappointment was a somewhat willful performance of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata (C major, op. 53), with the first movement bouncing around in tempo, many of the runs just slightly mushed together and the second theme weighty, maybe a little clunky. Little changes and hesitations here and there seemed over-thought, which made the slow movement viscous and oozing. Then there was the third movement, taken at a moderate pace, the bell-like main theme's first note played as if it were an anacrusis. Kissin's trills were immaculate as they buzzed around the trill-laden statement of the theme. The counterpart of this display was Liszt's outrageous Hungarian Rhapsody no. 15 ("Rákóczi March") at the recital's end, which whipped the audience into a frenzy satisfied only by three encores: Chopin's Nocturne in F# minor (op. 48/2), Liszt's arrangement of Paganini's "La Chasse" caprice, and the march from Prokofiev's opera Love for Three Oranges. So much the better that Washington Performing Arts will not make us wait two years for the next concert by Evgeny Kissin, who will return to the Kennedy Center on October 28.

23.4.15

Washington is a city overrun with choral singers and early music-heads, as well as the audiences that keep them afloat. Where were all of those people on Tuesday night for the rare performance of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo? Presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, it was doubly rare because it was part of the tour of the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, under legendary conductor John Eliot Gardiner. This was not the first time that we have reviewed the opera live, since it celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2007, when we heard performances by Concerto Italiano and Concerto Vocale Gent, both in Europe.

Gardiner, who turned 72 on Monday, formed his Monteverdi Choir over fifty years ago to give a performance of the composer's Vespro della Beata Vergine, a masterpiece even greater than L'Orfeo. In only two cities on this tour, Gardiner will lead a performance of the so-called 1610 Vespers alongside L'Orfeo -- sadly, not including the District of Columbia. The Gardiner recording of L'Orfeo was crucial in my musical formation, but it is no longer my favorite. Likewise, while Gardiner's approach to the work has changed somewhat since that recording, made in London in 1985, this performance was good, but not necessarily great. The forces were essentially the same here as on the recording, with slight number changes in recorders, trumpets, cornetti, and theorbos: there were even a few senior players in the ensemble who took part in that landmark recording.

Tenor Andrew Tortise was a fine Orfeo, one of the first virtuoso roles in operatic history, with rhythmic delight in Vi ricorda o bosch'ombrosi (an early example of the serenade aria type) and effortless beauty of tone and control of fast runs in Possente spirto (perhaps the first true operatic showpiece). The tone of his voice is quite pretty, flexible and light but with a satisfying resonance, casting a spell over the listener in that latter aria sung to Charon. (He did have one rather extensive memory slip in the second stanza of Qual onor, which we can chalk up to travel fatigue, something that may also account for the occasional scratchiness in his voice.) Francesca Aspromonte brought a clarion soprano and playful stage presence to the music of the Prologo and the Messagiera. Soprano Mariana Flores had a darker, somewhat softer tone as Eurydice and La Speranza. Bass Gianlucca Buratto made an imposing Caronte and Plutone, with impressive low notes, and Francesca Boncompagni was a silvery- light Proserpina.

The performance added up to about twenty minutes more than the length of the recording, this with no intermission and no pauses allowed for applause. The recitatives and in some cases the metered music was allowed a little more room to expand, but by and large Gardiner has stuck with his reading of Monteverdi's score, leading with a consistent and gracious hand. On the instrumental side, generally excellent, the cornetti had a bit of a rough night, right from the crucial opening Toccata, and there was an early solo violin entrance in the shepherds' scene. The addition of tambourine and drum, as well as vigorous hand clapping, enlivened many of the the choral and ballet scenes, danced by a few singers from the polished and puissant Monteverdi Choir as part of a rather successful semi-staging. The harp solo in the middle of Possente spirto was particularly fine, with harpist Gwyneth Wentink giving voice to the lyre of Orpheus.

The tour of these Monteverdi performances continues on to California (Costa Mesa and San Francisco), Princeton, and New York. The Carnegie Hall performance of the 1610 Vespers will be broadcast on WQXR (April 30). Do not miss it.

"[It's] a stampede... of every animal in the American West, cows and horses and antelopes and buffaloes. Everything is charging across that goddamn surface."
—Jackson Pollock

After eighteen months of conservation and cleaning at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, Jackson Pollock's first large-scale work, Mural, approximately 8' by 20' in size, is now on display at the Guggenheim Foundation in Venice, as part of a traveling exhibit, Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural’: Energy Made Visible.

Commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim for the entrance to her New York townhouse, Mural echos the work of his early mentor Thomas Hart Benton and the Regionalist style, Native American imagery, and Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Mexican muralists. Some see it as America's response to Picasso's Guernica.

As with anything Pollock, it was not an easy commission. He signed a gallery contract with Guggenheim in July 1943. The terms were $150 a month and a settlement at the end of the year if his paintings sold. He intended to have the mural done by the time for his show in November. However, as the time approached, the canvas for the mural was untouched. Guggenheim began to pressure him. Pollock spent weeks staring at the blank canvas, complaining to friends that he was "blocked" and seeming to become both obsessed and depressed. Finally, he painted the entire canvas in one frenetic burst of energy on New Year's Day of 1944.

In 1947 Guggenheim closed her gallery and returned to Europe. She had no room for Mural in her new canal-side quarters in Venice and donated the canvas to the University of Iowa.

22.4.15

Free Speech, Rachmaninov And Twitter Posts: How The Ukrainian War Invaded Toronto's Stage

...The answer (quoted via Musical Toronto) from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra came soon: “Due to ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets, we have decided to replace Valentina Lisita… Valentina Lisitsa’s provocative comments have overshadowed past performances. As one of Canada’s most important cultural institutions, our priority must remain on being a stage for the world’s great works of music, and not for opinions that some believe to be deeply offensive.”

This is perhaps the key quote, certainly the aspect that justifies the waves this issue created: The TSO just suggested that it was OK to cancel the appearance of an artist who holds and expresses, in a TSO-unrelated context, “opinions that some believe to be deeply offensive.” Let that one melt on your tongue....

"@TorontoSymphony disapproves of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it, unless it might be offensive to someone."

The New Orford String Quartet, formed in Canada in 2009, had a mixed debut at the Phillips Collection on Sunday afternoon. The quartet gave a nearly note-perfect performance in two monuments of the string quartet literature from the later careers of Haydn and Beethoven, but beneath the immaculate sheen, the music didn’t always come to life as it should.

In the first quartet from Haydn’s Op. 76 set, the musicians were at their well-blended best in the Adagio sostenuto. The opening movement was on the frenetic side... [Continue reading]

It can be a fine line between energetic enthusiasm and manic excess, especially with the sonic resources of the modern orchestra brought to bear. In his guest appearance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening in the Music Center at Strathmore, conductor Peter Oundjian seemed to aim for the former but sometimes ended up with the latter.

Starting with a Haydn symphony, No. 96 in D (“Miracle”), instead of an overture was an idea that should be encouraged... [Continue reading]

19.4.15

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

Ivor Bolton conducts the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris in a concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, with music of Mozart, Schubert, Gubaidulina, and Haydn, with violinist Gidon Kremer as soloist. [France Musique]

Watch violinist Renaud Capuçon and friends at the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence, with music by Schubert and Saint-Saëns. [ARTE]

A performance of Wagner's Lohengrin, recorded at Bayreuth in 1962, with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting Jess Thomas, Anja Silja, Astrid Varnay, and others. [ORF]

Listen to a performance of Verdi's Rigoletto from the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, starring Leo Nucci, Desirée Rancatore, and Gianluca Terranova. [RTBF]

Listen to a recital by violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Itamar Golan, with music by Elgar, Prokofiev, Brahms, Dvorak, and Saint-Saëns, recorded at the Château du lac de Genval last July. [RTBF]

Daniele Gatti conducts a concert with the Maîtrise de Radio France and Choeur de Femmes, the Orchestre National de France, and soloists Karine Deshayes and Lucy Crowe, with music of Liszt, Strauss, and Mendelssohn. [France Musique | Video]

Watch Gianandrea Noseda conduct a concert with pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino, recorded at the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence. [ARTE]

Philippe Herreweghe leads Collegium Vocale Ghent and soloists in Purcell's Hail, bright Cecilia, recorded last September in the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Warsaw. [ORF]

From the Opéra Comique in Paris, the chamber chorus Les Eléments, conducted by Joël Suhubiette, perform madrigals from the time of Shakespeare. [France Musique]

Listen to sonatas composed in Venice around the year 1700, by composers Antonio Caldara, Tomaso Albinoni, Giorgio Gentili, and others, performed by Opera Stravagante earlier this month in the refectory of the Carthusian monastery of Mauerbach. [ORF]

Donald Runnicles conducts the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, with soprano Laura Aikin, in music of Webern, Aribert Reimann, and Brahms, recorded last September. [ORF | Part 2]

The Australian String Quartet plays quartets by Schnittke and Beethoven at a concert recorded in Adelaide Town Hall. [ABC Classic]

Patrick Gallois leads the Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra in music of Ravel, Massenet, Franck, and Kantscheli, recorded last month in Bulgaria. [ORF]

Tughan Sokhiev conducts the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse in music by Berlioz, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Elgar. [France Musique]

Cornelius Meister leads the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, in music of Beethoven, Frank Martin, and Strauss, recorded in Graz. [ORF]

Music by Tigran Mansurian, including the 2011 setting of the Requiem Mass, performed by the Großes Orchester Graz, conductor Christian Muthspiel, the Vocalforum Graz, and soloists. [ORF]

The Wiener Virtuosen perform chamber music by Beethoven, Wellesz, and Martinu, recorded last month at the Wiener Musikverein. [ORF]

18.4.15

The heart of chamber music of Vienna beats in the Mozart-Saal. But the offerings at the Brahms-Saal of the venerable, more famous Musikverein can be tempting, too… and if and when the Takács Quartet calls whence, the resident-ionarts unit will drop whatever he is doing and head over to hear one of our longest standingfavorites. Even in an utterly conservative program such as they presented at the Musikverein on Tuesday, February 10th: Schubert, Schubert, Beethoven. And the Beethoven “Razumovsky 1” at that… not that there is anything wrong with that. But it’s not the modern Beethoven à la op.135 which might have been the

17.4.15

Sergei Rachmaninoff is a composer whose instrumental music often seems wandering and overlong to me. Not unlike his compatriot Tchaikovsky, whose ballets and operas suit me much more than his symphonies and concertos, Rachmaninoff seemed to benefit from the restraint of a text or story. This is likely why Kolokola, a choral symphony based on Edgar Allan Poe's evocative poem The Bells, is so effective, a grand Rachmaninoff work that never oozes into Rachmaninoff's saccharine sound and does not overstay its welcome. For some reason, the National Symphony Orchestra had only performed the piece once in its entire history, back in 1977, in a concert led by the late Norman Scribner. Vassily Sinaisky made his NSO debut with a spirited rendition of the work, heard last night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The veteran Russian conductor, who resigned from the Bolshoi Theater in 2013 "to avoid conflict" with the new director, came with three fine Russian-trained soloists and a sure hand on this work less familiar outside of Russia. Norman Scribner's choir, the Choral Arts Society of Washington, engulfed the hall in sound in the opening movement ("Silver Sleigh Bells"), well prepared by Scott Tucker. Tenor Sergey Semishkur, after an uncertain and slightly off-pitch introduction, had a more heroic sound in the full parts of this movement, with its lovely parts for celesta and every metallic percussion instrument Rachmaninoff could get his hands on. The slow movement ("Mellow Wedding Bells") had oozing strings and a smoldering melody in the cellos, cushioning the ample tone of soprano Dina Kuznehtsova, wavering only when she had to float that high A toward the end of the movement.

The whole ensemble was most secure in the loud and fast third movement ("Loud Alarum Bells"), with groaning deep woodwinds and the chorus, seated in sections for security, beautifully schooled in swelled crescendi and -- more importantly -- decrescendi. A moody English horn solo introduced the funereal finale ("Mournful Iron Bells"), led by baritone Elchin Azizov with a menacing, dark sound to his imposing voice. Of course, Rachmaninoff here turned again to a quotation of the Dies irae sequence, although in a much more hidden way in this score, contributing to the work's solemn conclusion.

The evening opened less auspiciously, with a somewhat messy, not quite fully digested performance of the overture to Borodin's Prince Igor, in the form reconstructed by Alexander Glazunov. This brought to the fore some of the more inscrutable qualities of Sinaisky's conducting style, although the musical ideas, especially the dynamic shading, were generally effective. The accelerandi and other tempo changes were not unified, and overall the piece, never before played by the NSO, needed more seasoning.

By contrast, Mozart's clarinet concerto (A major, K. 622) felt almost too familiar, too cozy and comfortable. Principal clarinetist Loren Kitt was authoritative in the solo part, equally beautiful in phrasing and tone, if perhaps a little too easygoing, certainly by contrast to the playing of Jörg Widmann, who last played the piece with the NSO in 2012. The Adagio here could have been slower, and the concluding Allegro was on the tame side, but Sinaisky and the NSO provided a warm, well-scaled envelope of sound for Kitt. It is hard not to like this piece, one of the most perfect concertos ever composed, not least because it lacks any cadenzas or any over-the-top virtuosic displays.

Martin Kasík had his Washington debut in 2000, garnering a fine review for his Young Concert Artists-sponsored recital at the Kennedy Center, the same year he also played at 92nd Street Y in New York. The Czech pianist came back for a recital at the Strathmore Mansion in 2006, which I am sorry to have missed, based on the beauty of his playing on Wednesday night at the Embassy of the Czech Republic, presented by the Embassy Series. In the intervening years, Kasík has become an exceptional musician and, judging by this video, a talented teacher, even though I do not understand a word of Czech.

16.4.15

The TrioWanderer is one of the ARD International Music Competition Prize Winner alumni that make that competition’s name in the chamber music field quite so prestigious. Their recordings (Best of 2009 here, Best of 2012 here, Messiaen) are of library-building quality, rivaled only by the Beaux Arts Trio and the Florestan Trio. In short: worth a trip to the Musikverein’s Brahms-Saal even if that isn’t my favorite chamber venue in Vienna. (Shaped like a coffin and just a little less lively.) Snark aside, it’s not that bad a place to hear Haydn, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky. Nor is it surprising to hear such an ultra-conventional program there, down to the abuse of glorious Haydn as the warm-up piece. (Complauding™*!)

And the Haydn Trio No.43 in C (the Vienna venues every only list Haydn by the incredibly useless Hoboken numbers, as if “Hob.XV/27” was particularly meaningful to everyone but a musicologist with not much of a social life) did indeed sound like a warm-up, sadly. It came and went—with a Presto Finale along the way that was nice for having tried to raise the game, but it veered... and instead of becoming lively by way of extreme speeds it just became

15.4.15

We are a month away from the Festival de Cannes, when Joel and Ethan Coen, who apparently do everything together, will preside as the first co-presidents of the jury. Isabella Rossellini will serve as chairperson of the Un Certain Regard jury, in the year that the festival will honor her mother, actress Ingrid Bergman.

The festival also announced that a French film, La Tête haute by Emmanuelle Bercot, will open the festival. The opening film in recent years has been a more mainstream movie, generally not in competition and often something of an embarrassment, like last year's Grace of Monaco, a film starring Nicole Kidman that went directly to cable in the United States. The record before that was not much better, including Baz Luhrmann's ghastly The Great Gatsby (2013), Woody Allen's tedious Midnight in Paris (2011), Ridley Scott's forgettable Robin Hood (2010), the animated film Up (2009), Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights (2007), and the execrable Da Vinci Code (2006) -- open laughter reportedly greeted that last one during the screening. Isabelle Regnier has some interesting thoughts on the choice of opening film this year, in an article (« La Tête haute », d’Emmanuelle Bercot, ouvrira le 68e Festival de Cannes, April 14) for Le Monde (my translation):

Thierry Frémaux, the festival's director, has chosen to break the unspoken rule that reserves the gala opening for big-budget films, often American, and not necessarily brilliant in an artistic way. "This year, we wanted to start off with a good film," announced Frémaux, who congratulated himself for presenting a work that "shows a certain commitment." He added: "This is a universal film that poses questions about our society's models; a film that speaks about youth, about the relationship between justice and society, about social and educational mechanisms in place in a country like France to treat cases of juvenile delinquency."

Regnier notes that the film is surely not a political rant and that its casting -- Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel, and Sara Forestier star -- guarantees the festival an acceptable level of star power. It is also the first film directed by a woman to open the festival since 1987, when A Man in Love by Diana Kurys was screened. It is almost certainly a better film than what was rumored for the opening, Mad Max: Fury Road.

14.4.15

As noted many times in these pages, opera companies and symphony orchestras must do more to sponsor new works. It is an expensive and mostly thankless endeavor, to be sure, but necessary to keep the art alive and growing. When commissioning composers, organizations tend to give preference to shorter works, which was at the heart of recent discussion online about longer symphonic works of the last two decades, summed up in a cogent piece by Alex Ross. It was William Robin who got the ball rolling with his enthusiasm for one such rare long orchestral work, Play by Andrew Norman -- an enthusiasm I do not really share. The situation is much the same with opera companies: see my comments on the American Opera Initiative at Washington National Opera. The new flute concerto by Baltimore-based composer Kevin Puts, which does not reach the 30-minute minimum set by Robin, is a case in point, not really a substantial work even though it came into being as a clandestine double commission by Bette and Joe Hirsch. On Sunday afternoon the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra gave the piece its local premiere, on a concert that also included Shostakovich's Festive Overture (unbearably loud) and Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony (not reviewed).

Though he is based now in Baltimore, where he teaches at Peabody, Puts grew up in my home state of Michigan, where his father was a professor at Alma College. Puts was launched to national attention when his opera, Silent Night, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, but it is telling that this is the first time his music has come under review at Ionarts. His opera and other music I have heard generally suits me, because he does not shy away from tonal styles but is not limited to them in a reactionary way. The first movement was a promising start, if a little too sentimental in a Copland- or Bernstein-derivative way, with a tender cadenza played with a precise tone by soloist Adam Walker that brought the movement to a subdued conclusion.

Where the piece really fell apart was in the second movement, because of some rather jarring borrowings from Mozart's K. 467 piano concerto. In an interview a few years ago, Puts admitted to an obsession with Mozart, saying, "I go through times when I ask myself, ‘How can I make my music more clear and fresh, like Mozart’s?’ It’s not that I want to plagiarize." Well, Puts may have crossed that line in this piece, where the connection with the Mozart source was announced in the opening phrases, then repeated in slightly more disguised form over and over, only to have an overt quotation appear in the piano near the end. The finale, back in the mode of Bernstein dance, was likewise simplistic and perhaps too much of a cute thing. One felt bad for the percussionist who had to sweat through an overlong passage with constant shaker rhythm, and while the orchestral musicians gave the catchy section for antiphonal hand clapping a rousing performance, it went on so long that it inevitably felt like a gimmick to pad the conclusion. This is the down side of commissioning and presenting new works: there are a lot of misses for the rare hit.

Gerry loved talking about singers, and he would often ask me what singers I most wanted to hear on his series. He always enjoyed hearing from me about singers he did not know, and the feeling was mutual, although he delivered on his end with actual recitals by those artists. He was one of the "early accepters" of Ionarts among concert presenters, and he personally invited me to almost all of the Vocal Arts recitals. In fact, Gerry represented an overall ideal as far as his interaction with critics: he never complained about any of my reviews over the years, even the doozies. When he agreed with my assessment, negative or otherwise, he let me know that. He was an honest man, and he appreciated honesty above all when it came to the concerts he offered, even when it involved his own disappointment. I will miss his smiling face at concerts, those of Vocal Arts and others, for when singers were involved, Gerry was always there.

12.4.15

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days. Because of the ongoing labor disputes at Radio France, there are still no streams available from France Musique.

Jonas Kaufmann stars in a double-bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, with Christian Thielemann conducting the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden at the Salzburg Easter Festival last month. [ORF]

Max Emanuel Cencic and Julia Lezhneva star in a performance of Handel's Alessandro, accompanied by Armonia Atenea and director George Petrou. [RTBF]

Harry Christophers leads The Sixteen, in a concert of music honoring Mary, Queen of Heaven, recorded last month in Melbourne. [ABC Classic]

Mariss Jansons leads the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and baritone Thomas Hampson in music of Mahler, Copland, and Bartók. [ORF]

Soprano Mojca Erdmann and violinist Isabelle Faust join Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico at the Klara Festival, recorded last month, in music of Haydn and Mozart. [RTBF]

From the Barbican Hall in London, Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Nielsen's fifth symphony, music of Ravel, and Prokofiev's third piano concerto with Alexander Toradze as soloist. [BBC3]

Listen to a concert with the Doric String Quartet, Pavel Haas Quartet, and friends, recorded at the Musica Viva Festival in Sydney. [ABC Classic]

The opening concert of the Musica Viva Festival in Sydney, with cellist Mischa Maisky and friends. [ABC Classic]

Maxim Vengerov joins the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France for Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, recorded last month in Vienna, with Myung-Whun Chung also conducting Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. [ORF | Part 2]

11.4.15

How one person comes to love another is a mystery. How a character played by Belgian actor Benoît Poelvoorde (Man Bites Dog) beguiles characters played by Charlotte Gainsbourg (Melancholia) and Chiara Mastroianni is something greater than a mystery. Yet that is the conceit at the heart of Three Hearts, the new film from Paris-born director Benoît Jacquot, his first feature since Les adieux à la reine. Poelvoorde plays Marc Beaulieu, a rather plain tax official from Paris who meets Sylvie, played by Gainsbourg, on a trip to a provincial town, played in the film by the city of Valence, with gorgeous mountain panoramas. They agree to meet in Paris, in the Jardin des Tuileries, but circumstances prevent the meeting. Of course, they have not exchanged phone numbers or even names, in spite of the lesson we all should have learned from Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunrise. When he returns to the town to look for her, he meets and falls in love with another woman, Mastroianni's Sophie, who turns out to be Sylvie's sister.

This is the sort of film where not much happens, and the script, co-written by Jacquot with Julien Boivent, even manages to stave off the inevitable confrontation among the three title characters. Through considerable bending of the story's plausibility, none of them is really to blame, for neither sister knows of the other's involvement and Marc does not know they are sisters until it is far too late. When Marc is married to Sophie and they have a son together, the truth finally comes out, although tragedy is delayed for as long as possible. What makes the film most alluring is the world of the sisters' family it evokes, not least through the beauty of the three actresses who star in it. Catherine Deneuve, as Sylvie and Sophie's mother, reigns over a grand and beautiful house, having passed on -- what else -- her antique business to her daughters. Deneuve, disappointingly, does not have much to say or contribute to the film, aside from presiding over countless family meals, the grande dame to her fingertips.

Shostakovich Unites Boston Symphony Orchestra And Deutsche Grammophon

...The BSO started their own label, but that hasn't quite taken off yet. And now they are led by one of the most promising and coveted conductors of his generation, the third musketeer next to Dudamel and Nézet-Séguin… Andris Nelsons.

Mark Volpe, Managing Director Boston Symphony Orchestra, could not disclose the confidential financial terms of the Boston Symphony’s agreement with DG, but did mention in an e-mail “that it is a licensing agreement in which the BSO retains ownership and control of the master recordings and licenses them to DG for marketing and distribution.” He further commented...

10.4.15

Pictures at an Exhibition, choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, New York City Ballet

The New York City Ballet is back at the Kennedy Center Opera House, in alternating programs this week featuring the giant of its past, George Balanchine, and its current choreographers. When you are dealing with new works of any kind, some will hit and some will miss, which was exactly the feeling experienced at the end of the selection billed as "21st-Century Choreographers" on Wednesday evening. It was a bit of a marathon, with four works adding up to almost three hours, and some of the work's tried one's patience to the extreme.

The program opened with Symphonic Dances, by the company's current ballet master-in-chief, Peter Martins. Actually premiered in 1994, the work is set to Rachmaninoff's superb score of that name, op. 45, the composer's final work and a notable exception to my general aversion to Rachmaninoff's instrumental music. The Martins choreography is visually pleasing, but little about it stood out as remarkable over the course of forty minutes: without a story, the elegant vocabulary wears thin too quickly. In the solo female role, Teresa Reichlen, who hails from Fairfax County, was a wispy and altogether lovely presence, all long legs and lightness. The general appeal of the choreography was not helped by the mediocrity of the orchestral performance, here given by the company's own orchestra under interim music director Andrews Sill. The orchestra has been through a bit of a rocky period in the last few years, which the new tenure of conductor Andrew Litton, a Washington favorite with the National Symphony Orchestra, will hopefully help to stabilize, starting next season.

The undisputed high point of the evening was the delightful new choreography to Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, created last year by Alexei Ratmansky. The setting of an art museum is suggested by projections (designed by Wendell K. Harrington), based on Wassily Kandinsky's Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles, dating from 1913, abstract shapes in bright colors that are reflected in movement by the dancers' costumes (designed by Adeline Andre). Although the music runs almost as long as the Rachmaninoff, played capably here in Musorgsky's original piano version by Cameron Grant, Ratmansky's choreography is so varied, brimming with originality, that it never tired. Sterling Hyltin was raised by the strong Tyler Angle in soaring leaps in "The Old Castle" movement, and in a striking reversal, women playfully incarnated the heavy-footed oxen in "Bydlo" and men the antic birds in the "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks." The "Catacomb" movement, for the entire cast, was bathed in shadows of red light.

Tiler Peck and Craig Hall made a beautiful pairing in Christopher Wheeldon's somewhat limited, repetitive This Bitter Earth, although it would have been just as visually pretty if it had been performed in silence, so little did it seem to have to do with the music, a recording from the soundtrack for Shutter Island. Both music and choreography felt endless in their over-repetition in Everywhere We Go, Justin Peck's abstract ballet to a suite of music by Sufjan Stevens (orchestrated by Michael P. Atkinson). Both choreographer and composer relied heavily on the copy-paste method, with some whole sections of the choreography simply repeated toward the end, not to mention a number of dancers who slipped and fell, for whatever reason.

The company's second program, seen on Thursday night but not for review, was worthwhile just to have a look at Balanchine's choreography for Agon, which was crucial in my making sense of Schoenberg's twelve-tone score for this work. Maria Kowroski was brilliant, almost superhuman, in the outrageous contortions of the Pas de Deux in the ballet's second part. Balanchine's vivacious choreography to Bizet's Symphony in C, last seen from American Ballet Theater in 2013, was also outstanding, especially the elegant extensions of Sara Mearns in the slow movement's pas de deux.

These programs are repeated through April 12, in the Kennedy Center Opera House.